Review - 'The Half-life of Home'

A vivid tour of the modern Blue Ridge

Published: Sunday, April 14, 2013 at 12:30 a.m.

Last Modified: Friday, April 12, 2013 at 12:00 p.m.

When Royce Wilder was 7 years old, his uncle used to terrify him with tales of the Shadow Man, a forest monster that used to stalk the mountain Indians, stealing their shadows. "When morning came, without their shadows to stake them to the ground, all the Indians blew away in the wind."

And late at night – just like the arrowheads you can still find in the ground – you can hear those lost Indians' souls moaning from the caves where the Shadow Man imprisoned them.

Now, flash forward a few decades in Dale Neal's new novel, "The Half-Life of Home." It's 1992, and Royce is more than a little bothered that the Democratic ticket is just about his age. ("The Oval Office belonged to older guys who could at least pretend to some wisdom.")

Royce now works as a land appraiser in Altamont, an increasingly upper-class preppie enclave in western North Carolina. (Trivia note: "Altamont" was the pseudonym that Thomas Wolfe used for Asheville in "Look Homeward, Angel.")

Most of the things he sees value in are the things that are disappearing. Royce compulsively buys up old farm implements, gadgets and thingamabobs that he knew as a boy growing up in the Beaverdam community in the mountains. (Beaverdam is the name of a real community in Buncombe County, not far from Asheville.)

At one point, supposedly on a trip to the landfill to get rid of some of his "junk," Royce pulls into an estate sale and bids more than he should on an old wooden-box radio like the kind his daddy used to own.

In the meantime, what with $1.13 gasoline and unemployment up to 6.8 percent, Royce's middle-class lifestyle is feeling the pinch. He doesn't quite know it yet, but his wife Eva is about to get laid off from her job as executive director of Keep Altamont Beautiful. Meanwhile, his son Dean's tuition is due at St. Dunstan's, an Episcopal prep school.

Dean is a sore point with Royce. Now a teenager, the boy has grown lazy and surly. Unbeknownst to Royce or Eva, he's off on a clandestine graffiti-tagging expeditions and smoking dope with some of the preppier St. Dunstan's boys.

But worse is to come. It turns out that his uncle has neglected to pay taxes on the family's Beaverdam homeplace for many years. A real estate speculator is skulking around, muttering about how Beaverdam is virtually uninhabitable due to radon; he wants to snap up all the lots for a proposed nuclear waste dump. And a crazy old lady, poking around, threatens to dig up old secrets that Royce doesn't even know are buried up there.

Dale Neal long covered the environmental beat for the Asheville Citizen-Times, and questions of land and its price are much on his mind.

He gives a vivid tour of the modern Blue Ridge, from preppie Altamont to the drive-in flea markets to the pick-ups on blocks and old refrigerators tossed by the side of the road.

Beyond that he raises questions of heritage and how much, or how little, we charge when we sell it off. When all of the old links to the past are gone, will we be as lost as Dean? Will we be so insubstantial that we blow away in the wind?

Neal's previous novel, "Cow Across America," won the 2009 Novello Literary Prize. With "The Half-Life of Home," he joins Ron Rash and Wiley Cash in the pantheon of western North Carolina's new generation of master storytellers.

<p>When Royce Wilder was 7 years old, his uncle used to terrify him with tales of the Shadow Man, a forest monster that used to stalk the mountain Indians, stealing their shadows. "When morning came, without their shadows to stake them to the ground, all the Indians blew away in the wind."</p><p>And late at night – just like the arrowheads you can still find in the ground – you can hear those lost Indians' souls moaning from the caves where the Shadow Man imprisoned them.</p><p>Now, flash forward a few decades in Dale Neal's new novel, "The Half-Life of Home." It's 1992, and Royce is more than a little bothered that the Democratic ticket is just about his age. ("The Oval Office belonged to older guys who could at least pretend to some wisdom.")</p><p>Royce now works as a land appraiser in Altamont, an increasingly upper-class preppie enclave in western North Carolina. (Trivia note: "Altamont" was the pseudonym that Thomas Wolfe used for Asheville in "Look Homeward, Angel.")</p><p>Most of the things he sees value in are the things that are disappearing. Royce compulsively buys up old farm implements, gadgets and thingamabobs that he knew as a boy growing up in the Beaverdam community in the mountains. (Beaverdam is the name of a real community in Buncombe County, not far from Asheville.)</p><p>At one point, supposedly on a trip to the landfill to get rid of some of his "junk," Royce pulls into an estate sale and bids more than he should on an old wooden-box radio like the kind his daddy used to own.</p><p>In the meantime, what with $1.13 gasoline and unemployment up to 6.8 percent, Royce's middle-class lifestyle is feeling the pinch. He doesn't quite know it yet, but his wife Eva is about to get laid off from her job as executive director of Keep Altamont Beautiful. Meanwhile, his son Dean's tuition is due at St. Dunstan's, an Episcopal prep school. </p><p>Dean is a sore point with Royce. Now a teenager, the boy has grown lazy and surly. Unbeknownst to Royce or Eva, he's off on a clandestine graffiti-tagging expeditions and smoking dope with some of the preppier St. Dunstan's boys.</p><p>But worse is to come. It turns out that his uncle has neglected to pay taxes on the family's Beaverdam homeplace for many years. A real estate speculator is skulking around, muttering about how Beaverdam is virtually uninhabitable due to radon; he wants to snap up all the lots for a proposed nuclear waste dump. And a crazy old lady, poking around, threatens to dig up old secrets that Royce doesn't even know are buried up there.</p><p>Dale Neal long covered the environmental beat for the Asheville Citizen-Times, and questions of land and its price are much on his mind.</p><p>He gives a vivid tour of the modern Blue Ridge, from preppie Altamont to the drive-in flea markets to the pick-ups on blocks and old refrigerators tossed by the side of the road. </p><p>Beyond that he raises questions of heritage and how much, or how little, we charge when we sell it off. When all of the old links to the past are gone, will we be as lost as Dean? Will we be so insubstantial that we blow away in the wind?</p><p>Neal's previous novel, "Cow Across America," won the 2009 Novello Literary Prize. With "The Half-Life of Home," he joins Ron Rash and Wiley Cash in the pantheon of western North Carolina's new generation of master storytellers.</p><p><a href="http://www.starnewsonline.com/section/topic14"><b>Ben Steelman</b></a>: 343-2208</p>